Dancehall

FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT DANCEHALL - PAGE 2

"Can you 'ear me now? says a barely audible voice in a gruff Jamaican patois, over a crackling phone line. This is not a wireless-communication commercial; it's dancehall reggae star Beenie Man. He is, in fact, struggling with an unusually finicky cellular connection as he travels by car from the Kingston, Jamaica, airport to his studio, Shocking Vibes. There, Beenie Man will host a TV crew from U.S. cable network BET, to help publicize his new album, "Tropical Storm." But even the cell phone-disrupting atmospheric disturbance, courtesy of Tropical Storm Lili, soon to be upgraded to headline-making Hurricane Lili, isn't enough to slow Beenie Man. "I'm driving, and I can't even see the road," says an increasingly peeved Beenie Man. Later, at Shocking Vibes, he chats away as the BET crew sets up to film a segment for its celebs-at-home show "How I Live.

K-OS Exit Canada might not seem like the hip-hop capital of the world, but our neighbors to the north have been fostering a pretty impressive alternative rap scene for the past several years. Kevin Brereton--a.k.a. K-OS--honed his skills in Toronto, and maybe it's that city's multicultural vibe that inspired him to create such a diverse and adamantly personal debut. "Exit" contains just as many elements of acoustic pop and R&B as it does hip-hop, finding room for dancehall-inflected soul like "Call Me" and the dub-inflected "Superstarr Pt. 1" as well as slightly harder tracks like "Freeze."

The Wild Hare may be closed, but reggae lives on at the corner of Clark and Addison streets, thanks to Conscious Culture Chicago. The reggae and world music concert producers keep the rhythms alive with the Reggae in Wrigleyville music series at the Cubby Bear. The first show will be Saturday, with the regular run of the series on Thursdays (9 p.m.). Saturday's opener will have performances by Red Rat , left, with his distinctive, squirrely voice and playful dancehall, and Kofi , of Roots, Stem and Branches (RSB Band)

The Brit-pop superstars' sixth album begins and ends with half-hearted melodies distinguished only by how transparently they rip off their influences. "Mucky Fingers" doesn't even try to escape the shadow of the Velvet Underground's "Waiting for the Man." "Lyla," the album's first single, is a tepid reminder of past glories. Would-be anthems "Keep the Dream Alive" and "Let There Be Love" drag the album to a close. The keepers are sandwiched in the middle: Liam Gallager's lyrically shallow but musically glorious "Love Like a Bomb," a guitar-driven waltz sent soaring by a piano break, and Noel Gallagher's "Importance of Being Idle," which qualifies as first-rate homage to the Kinks' dancehall pop. On the Latin-fired groove of "Part of the Queue," Noel Gallager sings, "Every beginning has broken its promise."

Shaggy Lucky Day Once you ascend the U.S. charts, the usual strategy is to do everything you can to stay there. If you're pop-reggae phenom Shaggy, that means the follow-up to your multiplatinum "Hotshot" probably isn't the time to jettison big-name American producers and purge your sound of the familiar samples and borrowings that made "Dance and Shout" and "Angel" crossover hits. But that's just what Shaggy has done. "Lucky Day" proves Shaggy's optimism and charisma don't require market-tested hooks.

With "Informer," white Canadian artist Snow has managed to put a dance hall-derived tune sung in Jamaican patois on the top of the Billboard charts. But chart-topping success seems not have made too deep an impression on Snow. "I was surprised because when I made `Informer,' I was like, do you think people will like it?" says Snow, aka Darrin O'Brien from Toronto, who grew up immersed in the culture and music of his Jamaican immigrant neighbors. "We weren't aiming for a pop hit. We all liked it and we jammed to it, but we didn't know what the public will like."

By Rick Reger. Individual listings by Rick Reger and David Duckman | August 30, 1996

Over the last half century, Jamaican music and American R&B have traded ideas and innovations back and forth in a playful game of musical tag that has profoundly altered pop music in both countries. In the '50s, the massive popularity of American R&B in Jamaica and its subsequent influence on the sound of local mento music led to the birth of ska and reggae. In the '60s and '70s, Jamaican dancehall emerged -- a style in which DJs talked, or "toasted," over reggae rhythm tracks.

Friday: Producer/DJ Luca Venezia streaked through a half-dozen genres before settling into his current king spot. As Drop The Lime, he's been doing a good job of always being on the fringe of what's hot, heavy and pulsing on the ultra-cool dance floors of the world. In the last year he's suddenly become an inspired, standout choice among an ever-widening field (blame technology) of unimpressive bog-jockeys and remixers. Drop The Lime falls into the unfortunately named micro-scene of "bass."

Although artists in the American music community had been conspicuously absent from critical commentary on post-9/11 life and military action against Iraq until recently, reggae icon Buju Banton was never afraid to address the volatile issue. "People all over the world are talking about the war," said the Jamaican, whose given name is Mark Myrie and who appears at the House of Blues tomorrow night. "People all over the world are watching, forming their own opinion. The opinion that has surfaced is: No war. What is the reason for war?

Sebastian Bach "Angel Down" !!! "Angel Down" is a rip-roarin' rock album. After eight years, though, you might've expected a more distinctively Sebastian Bach album. By tailoring two songs to guest vocalist Axl Rose, Bach swivels the spotlight away from his worship-worthy self. An uncharacteristically tortured Bach blazes a promising new path of modern badness and paranoia beginning with "Angel Down" and ending with four Baz-to-the-wall bruisers. [ GREG BURKE, L.A. TIMES ]